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In Germany, a new group reflects a schism among liberal Jewish congregations
(JTA) — A new association of egalitarian Jewish congregations has launched in Germany, in the latest consequence of a scandal that has been unfolding within German Judaism for nearly a year.
The Jewish-Liberal Egalitarian Union, or JLEV according to its German acronym, marks a split with the existing body representing liberal Judaism in Germany, the Union of Progressive Jews.
The two groups both represent non-Orthodox synagogues in Germany, but the UPJ was created as a subsidiary of the World Union of Progressive Judaism, based in the United Kingdom. The new group, on the other hand, is overseen by the Central Council of Jews in Germany, whose role includes distributing government funding to Jewish institutions.
“A liberal association under the umbrella of the Central Council strengthens the idea of diversity in unity,” a spokesman for the organization told JTA in explaining the motivation behind the move.
The crucial difference between the two groups, however, is not who oversees them but that JLEV has no association with Walter Homolka, the rabbi at the center of the ongoing scandal.
Homolka was a founder of the UPJ in 1997, as well as of several other German Jewish organizations including its progressive seminaries. Since allegations broke last May that he had abused his power as the rector of the liberal Abraham Geiger College rabbinical school, Homolka has stepped back from his many roles in German Jewish organizations.
But after the embattled rabbi declined to run for another term as UPJ chair in the last election in December, a new board was elected that, critics said, was friendly to Homolka and showed little sympathy for those who claimed they had been harmed by him.
“We feel we are not represented any more by the UPJ,” Rebecca Seidler, head of the liberal Jewish communities of Hanover and chair of the State Association of the Jewish Communities of Lower Saxony, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency at the time.
Now, Seidler is a cofounder of the new organization, and her community is one of the nine to join it. The new group says it will offer adult education and youth programs. It also requires members to comply with a strict ethical code.
Seidler and other JLEV founders said in a statement that they determined it was “necessary to set up a separate umbrella organization” after the UPJ responded “in a strange way” to the accusations against Homolka.
“They trivialized, relativized and took a one-sided approach, failing to consider and pay attention to the critical voices of member communities,” the group’s statement said.
Exactly what it means for Germany to have two progressive Jewish congregational associations is uncertain.
The Germany split is not the first change in European progressive Jewish communities this week. Earlier, Britain’s liberal and Reform Jewish organizations merged into a new “Progressive Judaism” movement within the World Union of Progressive Judaism.
But while the group welcomed that development, a spokesperson told JTA in an email that it “isn’t making any comment at this time” about the changes in Germany.
It is estimated that, out of about 90,000 registered members of Jewish communities in Germany, about 5,000 affiliate with liberal or egalitarian congregations. There may be as many as 100,000 more people who identify as Jewish but don’t belong to a formal community.
The UPJ currently lists 32 member communities, including the nine defectors. It will continue to represent liberal communities across Germany — at least for now, and as long as communities choose to ally themselves with it.
“From an organizational logic, it does not make sense for communities to be members of both organizations,” the Central Council spokesperson told the JTA, adding that while the council has no legal obligation to support the UPJ, “as an organization of liberal Judaism, in which some member congregations of the Central Council are also members, it will continue to be supported according to the principles of the Central Council.”
Talks are underway about a formal funding agreement for JLEV.
As for the UPJ, concern about the competing organization appears to be slight.
“Every liberal Jew has the freedom to organize himself,” UPJ chair Irith Michelsohn told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in an email, noting that she had known about the launch of the new group “for some time already.” She added, “There are no changes for us.”
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The post In Germany, a new group reflects a schism among liberal Jewish congregations appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Israel to Establish Defense Offices in Former UNRWA Compound
A man handles fallen cables at the Jerusalem headquarters of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) as the headquarters is dismantled by Israeli forces, in East Jerusalem, January 20, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Ammar Awad/File Photo
Israel’s cabinet on Sunday approved a plan to build a defense compound on the site of the recently demolished premises of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency in East Jerusalem.
Israel in January demolished structures inside the UN Palestinian refugee agency’s East Jerusalem compound after seizing the site last year, in an act condemned by the agency as a violation of international law.
In a joint statement, the Defense Ministry and Jerusalem Municipality said the new compound would include the establishment of a military museum, a recruitment office and a defense minister’s office.
Defense Minister Israel Katz called the decision one of “sovereignty, Zionism, and security.”
UNRWA, which Israeli authorities accuse of bias, had not used the building since the start of last year after Israel ordered it to vacate all its premises and cease its operations.
A UNRWA spokesperson declined to comment on the Israeli plan.
The agency operates in East Jerusalem, which the U.N. and most countries consider territory occupied by Israel as it was captured from Jordan in the 1967 Middle East war. Israel considers all Jerusalem to be its indivisible capital.
UNRWA also operates in Gaza, the West Bank and elsewhere in the Middle East, providing schooling, healthcare, social services and shelter to millions of Palestinians.
“There is nothing more symbolic or justified than establishing the new IDF recruitment office and defense establishment institutions precisely on the ruins of the former UNRWA compound — an organization whose employees took part in the massacres, murders, and atrocities committed by Hamas terrorists on October 7,” Katz said.
Israel has alleged that some UNRWA staff were members of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas and took part in the attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, that killed about 1,200 Israelis and led to Israel’s war against Hamas.
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Palestinian Leader’s Son Wins Role in Abbas’ Party, Official Says
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, accompanied by his son Yasser, leaves a hospital in Ramallah in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, May 28, 2018. REUTERS/Mohamad Torokman
The millionaire businessman son of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has won a steering role in his father’s political party Fatah, a party official said on Sunday, as a succession fight looms for control of the embattled Palestinian Authority (PA).
Yasser Abbas won a seat in elections for the Fatah Central Committee, the party’s highest decision-making body, at its first general conference in almost a decade. Mahmoud Abbas, 90, will remain chairman, it decided.
The PA was set up as an interim administration under the 1990s Oslo accords between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization, an umbrella group still internationally recognized as the representative of the Palestinian people. The powerful Fatah party dominates both the PA and the PLO.
Abbas’ son’s foray into politics has fueled speculation that the president may be seeking to position Yasser, 64, to succeed him as head of Fatah.
That has drawn criticism from some Fatah officials, who say Yasser would be unable to unify Palestinians or help them chart a new political future after years without national elections or tangible steps toward statehood.
In the more than two decades since Mahmoud Abbas was elected to succeed Fatah founder Yasser Arafat, Palestinians have come to view the PA as ineffective and corrupt, something denied by Abbas, who has ruled by decree since his mandate expired in 2009.
In 2007, Abbas’ Fatah forces in the Gaza Strip were overpowered by Hamas militants who seized control of the enclave, a year after Hamas swept the Palestinian parliamentary elections.
Peace talks with Israel meant to lead to the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem collapsed in 2014, with expanding Israeli settlements since carving up areas slated for Palestinian statehood. The PA is also grappling with a financial crisis.
Yasser Abbas, who has never held an official role within Fatah or the PA, runs tobacco and contracting firms in the parts of the West Bank where the PA exercises limited self rule. Critics have long alleged that he and his brother Tarek have used public funds to help their businesses, allegations both men reject.
Among others to have won seats on the Central Committee are Majed Faraj, head of the General Intelligence Agency, and former militant group leader Zakaria Zubeidi, released in a Hamas-Israel prisoner-hostage exchange as part of a 2025 Gaza ceasefire.
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Federal Funding for Trump’s Ballroom in Jeopardy After Senate Ruling
Aerial view from the top of the Washington Monument shows construction crews as they continue site preparation for a planned White House ballroom in the area of the former East Wing in Washington, D.C., U.S., May 2, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Ken Cedeno
A US Senate official on Saturday removed security funding that could be used for President Donald Trump’s planned White House ballroom from a massive spending package, Democratic lawmakers said, imperiling Republican efforts to devote taxpayer money to the contentious project.
The decision by the Senate’s parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough, deals a blow to Trump and his administration, which has sought the money for security purposes related to the ballroom.
Trump has said the construction of the ballroom would be funded by $400 million in private donations. But Senate Republicans are seeking $1 billion in taxpayer funding to the Secret Service for security upgrades to the ballroom and other structures being built beneath it.
FRIVOLOUS DIVERSION OR NECESSARY MODERNIZATION?
Democrats have criticized the ballroom as an expensive and frivolous diversion by Trump at a time when Americans face rising costs such as higher fuel prices. Trump, a real estate developer-turned-politician, has written on social media that it will be “the finest Building of its kind anywhere in the World.”
MacDonough ruled that the security funding provision falls under chamber rules that require 60 votes to pass most legislation, according to the office of Senator Jeff Merkley, the top Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee.
Republicans hold a 53-47 majority in the Senate.
The parliamentarian interprets Senate rules, including whether legislative provisions are permitted. Republican senators still could revise the legislation to try to gain the parliamentarian’s approval.
Ryan Wrasse, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader John Thune, said in a social media post that Republicans would keep trying. “Redraft. Refine. Resubmit,” Wrasse wrote on X.
If Republicans do not succeed, they may be unable to include the ballroom-related funding in a $72 billion spending package they plan to bring to a vote on the Senate floor, with passage expected on a party-line vote with Democrats opposed. The bulk of the legislation is devoted to immigration enforcement.
Republicans have been invoking complex budget rules to try to secure passage without any Democratic support.
“While we expect Republicans to change this bill to appease Trump, Democrats are prepared to challenge any change to this bill,” Merkley said in a statement.
Democrats have opposed funding for Trump’s signature immigration crackdown absent reforms they have sought since federal immigration agents killed US citizens in separate incidents in Minnesota in January.
Republicans have said federal funding for ballroom security is needed to ensure presidential safety, citing an April incident in which an alleged gunman is accused of storming a black-tie media gala in Washington that Trump attended.
The administration has said the ballroom will modernize infrastructure, bolster security and ease strain on the White House, which often relies on temporary outdoor structures to host large events. Trump has said the ballroom will be completed around September 2028, near the end of his second term in office.
Democrats, hoping to win control of Congress in November’s midterm elections, are seizing on Republican support of the ballroom to portray Trump’s party as out of touch with the cost-of-living concerns of Americans at a time of rising energy costs driven by the Iran war he and Israel launched in February.
Trump last year ordered the demolition of the White House’s East Wing – constructed in 1902 during Theodore Roosevelt’s presidency and expanded four decades later during Franklin Roosevelt’s presidency – to make way for his ballroom.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation, a nonprofit organization, filed a lawsuit challenging the project, arguing that neither the president nor the National Park Service, which manages the White House grounds, possessed the authority to tear down the historic structure or erect a major new facility without explicit congressional approval.
A US appeals court in April allowed construction to continue after the judge handling the National Trust lawsuit issued an order halting the project.